


The valiant

by LittleGreenPlasticSoldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean wank, Domestic, Domestic Dean Winchester, Gen, Guilt, I didn't mean for it to be a poem, I reserve the right to fuck up my poetry however I like, I'm Sorry, Introspection, Please be gentle with me., Poetry, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Prose Poem, misery-guts, pentameter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 13:14:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier/pseuds/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier
Summary: Dean convinces himself he's doing the right thing, again..I got Prompt: E and 20  “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once” (Julius Caesar II.2) plus Ellen Harvelle, EMF Reader, Exorcism (2 out of 3).  The line before this is: “When beggars die there are no comets in the sky. The heavens only announce the deaths of princes.”





	The valiant

A valiant brother took the weight, the fall;  
The valiant’s brother took a throne, and guilt.  
Doing as he was told, he found a seat  
Of soft leather, named Jason, reclined for  
Relief, and all was fine.  A gift of life.  
He would find quiet, habits of home, and  
A woman, her son, true to each other,  
Donating themselves, who’d live and play  
For comfort and rest, as though home, or  
Hearth, or routine, was new to him.

But Dean had routine before. He had thought  
It was all random.  The mercy of fate.    
Different towns, different people, and  
Who-knows-what monster to battle with next.    
But inside that, or because of it,  
There was routine.  

Military drills for military things,  
Book in, set up, clean up, pack up, check out,  
Dude, I’m lactose intol- _Dude_ , where’s the pie?  
Use your own paste. Jerk. Buy your own gas. Bitch.  
Pack down the salt and sharpen each blade, I’ll  
Sleep in the car, I’ll be the wingman. These  
Reinforcements each for how they were home  
When together, or in Baby, or out.    
Ev’ry tick of the muscle memory humm’d  
With family and home and self,  
Connecting time, in any place.

Now Valiant Dean does the little loop,  
_Again_ \- check - hidden weapons, invisible  
Sigils, EMF batteries, wardings, salt.  
A tap on the sturdy barriers held.

He sees, too, how method each job could be.    
The many uniforms, the types they were;  
The moms and husbands, and children and friends;  
The neighbours and coworkers, all victims,  
All rattled or angry, all left behind.    
Brow and mouth both drawn tight with compassion,  
Low lines of concern, patient nods, cards left.  
Fake cam’raderie, who’s your superior,  
The truths they almost said, over and over and over.  

Modus operandi, that Sam shared too,  
Dean realises.  He misses, he feels, half his brain.

This night, in local theatre, our Valiant  
Performs slumped down in the lounge chair, fed and  
Thinking hard of the story he just told.  
Four night’s now Ben’s asked Dean to read  
About James and Cherub and risk and loss.  
Children doing grownup things in absence  
Of their parents. It’s familiar, and gripping.

The reading soothes him after the first act:  
Dinner together, then dessert, teeth, story  
And sleep.  Each scene more domestic than last.  
The trope arcs upwards, the Too Good To Last  
making Dean’s skin pull tight, his heart hold back.    
Ben puts on his pjs, Lisa kisses  
his head. They say their sweetest words right there  
while Dean’s home to witness. They invite him  
with their kindness, but he just can’t swallow,  
can’t get it past the lump, not til after,  
during intermission, lain down again,  
by the woman who’ll prob’bly forgive him.

And now that Ben’s asked Dean for near a week,  
that’s part of the script too.  Dean has become  
part of their routine, adopting their customs,  
Adapting like he does, joining in to  
Blend in, belong… he’ll tick along in time…  

Heart, muscles and memory.

But this life, holy crap, it’s what’s inside  
Each loop/bucket that he cannot control.    
In his job, his Honest To God honest job,  
The school pick up, the shops - it isn’t just  
The unexpected interactions; it’s  
That he can’t avoid them.  He _lives_ here now.  
He might see them tomorrow.  
Bosses change depending on the location  
(Sometimes having a boss is easy,  
Sometimes it’s a bloodless lobotomy),  
The clients aren’t always the same person,  
The other parents at the school gate, the neighbours  
And their _moods_ …  he can fake it.

He can fake anything.  

But it’s not routine, not predictable,  
So all he has left is to be himself.  

It’s stealing the distance between his lives,  
Conditioning him to belong, ev’rywhere.  

Heart muscles and memory.

In this moment, then, when he’s staring at  
The TV guide, feeling like the choice ‘tween  
_The Exorcist_ and _Marley and Me_  
Is the fucking metaphor of all time,  
He is slapped again by the randomness  
Within the form of this life.

It’s not the superannuation ad,  
Nor the baby wipes ad, nor the mountain  
Vacation ad (He blocks them out altogether.)    
It’s an ad for a real local theatre  
Production, one week of _Julius Caesar_ ,  
Plain and simple, the words clear and piercing:

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;  
the valiant never taste of death but once.”

Dean’s gaze slips through the screen, into distance  
And past, while hapless Lisa reads nearby.  
He thinks of Sam’s first death, early and grim,  
The one Dean made them take back with his own.

 _Sam is not a coward_ , he thinks. _They don’t know what they’re talking about._

Sam is down there right now, in pain, dying  
Ev’ry day, Dean’s sure -  

_They don’t know what they’re talking about._

\- He turns from the thought  
of his brother, again, so he can breathe.

His mind flips through; his dad sacrificing  
For his eldest, and losing him again.

_They are not cowards._

But what should he call it when he knew he’d  
Bend himself and the rules to avoid fate?  
Crossroads and deals and count downs and short sight.  
He got what he wanted, but was it brave?

Jo had valour, with that early, good sense.    
Holy hell, Jo was amazing, important.  
Dean wishes he knew her better.  And _Ellen_.  
The one true case of valiant he had seen.

Her one life and one death to her daughter  
Given, with fire and fierce belonging, she  
Stayed so that her Jo would not die alone-  
(Dean’s said it too for Sam.)  
Spent all her days in one gritted breath ripped,  
Did ev’ry job she’s ever had to do,  
And died.  
(Dean’s done it too for Sam.)

 _Ellen_ … Dean’s head slowly bows, his empty  
Sight sinking down into his lap as he  
Remembers her anchorage, his shallow  
Comprehension.

 _She chose death because she was a mother._  
Not for trade or for leverage, just for Jo.    
She was going to get nothing back, and  
She gave everything still.  

In a distant tone, not unlike his dad’s -  
_She sat down next to her dying child and_  
\- The thoughts spiral on themselves, thick and sad, -  
_Damn well burned along with her._ **For** her.    
\- Dropping like wet sand, from his mind onto -  
_For family and nothing else.  Chose it without thinking._  
\- His dumb heart, heavy and cold, sickening.

_Jo didn’t die alone._

And Dean replays, again, the sight of his baby brother tipping over the edge of the world, without a friend, into the wind, and out of love’s reach forever.  
  


Dean’s chosen death so many times.  Each nod  
Was surrender, (You’ll see no comets here,)  
Again, again, only to ease the hurt.    
Because his pride and skin couldn’t take it.  
_I let them have me, and laid down again…_

Dean doesn’t think of how he’d stand in place  
Of Lisa or Ben, or anyone else,  
‘Cause he’d call it duty, not bravery.  
He looks at the plain colours and constant  
Comfort that pretends to protect them.  With great  
Knowledge comes great responsibility,  
Yet he acts like they’re safe enough and  
Does nothing.

Because it is what Sam wanted for him.  
Sam wanted him safe and happy.  He did.  
He made him promise.    
Just like a little brother who’s too young,  
He was actually dreaming of something  
That doesn’t exist - a worry-free life -  
And even though Dean scowls at himself for  
Not seeing it for what it was (Sam was  
Acting too), he looks at Lisa curled there  
On the couch and knows he shouldn’t bow out  
So soon, not without a damn good reason.  
Not just because he’s afraid, again, not  
Because he feels, God, _uncomfortable_.

Deep down, way down deep, where he can still  
Smell cold blood and taste broken ground, Dean knows  
What he’s ignoring while he’s here.  

He hides.

Using his promise to Sam as a sad, pathetic loophole.

Here it’s easy, and warm like winter sun.  
During the day he smiles, hugs, and never,  
Not once, interrupts Lisa’s loving glow,  
Ben’s idolising gaze, their shy doe-eyes,  
Like he might be the _good male influence_ ,  
A good and protective thing in their lives.

 _Imposter_ , he thinks.  
_For now_ , he warns.  
His gut hangs low with lies.   _I let them look at me with hope_.  

Kills him every time.

He used to live amongst the bravest ones.    
Now Bobby’s the last one left.  Dean may run  
Through routines that tie him to his past, and  
Blindly dance through the ones he has now, and  
He knows, sure sure he’s ready - in a beat -  
To go do what should be done, like routine.  

But Sam is dying every day, alone,  
Dean’s sure (the heavens are so quiet). So  
Dean hasn’t finished his last duty yet.  
He doesn’t know how, nor how to buy it.

Deep down, _way_ down deep, where he can still  
Hear _Boy_ , and _Dude_ , and _Hey Jude_ , and _Bite me_ ,  
He knows he’s doing what he’s told because  
Sometimes it’s easier to have a boss.  
It’s easier to feel crap for being  
An imposter than to pretend he’s not  
Actually a Trojan Horse.

 _I’m out,_ he thinks. _I’m making Sam happy._   

Dean picks up the remote, hands it to her,  
Returning her smile with a wink.  He leans  
Back into the easy chair, starts doing  
The Right Thing again.  It’s what he does now.    
The order, the easy.  The blind routine.  
It’s Act Two.  He’s just going to die here,  
For a while.


End file.
